I was able to replicate the error with FileMaker Pro 12.0v5 under Mac OS X 10.8.5 on a MacBook 2.66 GHz Intel Core i7 with 4GB memory. The script crashed after 40 records. On second attempt, I inserted a Commit Records step within the loop, and the script made it to 300 records before crashing.

I then ran the script under FileMaker Pro 13.0v1, and the script completed. I raised the loop to 2000, and it also completed. Although this issue was never reported, it does appear to be fixed in FileMaker Pro 13. You may want to download a trial version of FileMaker Pro 13 and try it for yourself. If you do, let me know if you still encounter the problem.

I can't get a reliable consistent crash with the speak step on FileMaker 13 latest under Mac OS X. I've got a sample file that got to about 40 speaks before crashing ( it varies ).

The crash log seems to show a thread for each instance of the speak step, which to me would explain the issue ( threads being created and never closed, or closed too slowly ), but it might be my inability to interpret the crash logs.

I can send you a sample file and a few of the recent crash logs if that helps.

Yes, please send in the sample file, along with the crash log, and even if I'm unable to replicate the issue, I'll send it on to Development and Testing for review. Check your Inbox at the top of this page for instructions where to send the file.

Although I was unable to make your file crash under FileMaker Pro 13, I have sent the file and crash report to our Development and Testing departments for review, along with my earlier sample file and findings. I will keep you posted when I receive any feedback.

An entry in the Known Bugs List has been linked to this Issue Report. Any Comments/Questions/Suggested Corrections should be posted here or in a new thread. Please do not post such comments to the Known Bugs List thread.

I had a huge problem with the speak script step. We have a system to make the inventory of our stock. 10-15 teams are counting with barcodes scanners and I had an accoustic feedback on quantity and some other controls.

In the previous years, we always had some machines which freezed during the inventory, but we never found out why. We recently switched to FM13 and the speak script step even failed on more machines (ie. we have two identical machines in our stock (MacMini). On on the speak script step always crashed Filemaker, on the other one, it worked OK.
Now I have seen this post and was able to make a workaround. You can use the Applescript say command to use spoken commands in FileMaker. There are no freezes at all with this technology.